The dash at night

[dollywobbler]

There's something rather pleasant about a dashboard illuminated at night. Unless you're a night-shift truck driver, in which case I apologise. Here are two of mine.

 

 

Annoyingly, I didn't do a light-free shot of this.

 

Twilight.

 

All of these pictures could have been improved if I took better photos. What have you got?

[Guest]

I have the one of my 460 Turbo's interior:

 

 

The interior of the C4's pretty mental at night, I'll have to do one of that.

[dollywobbler]

Jeepers. That Volvo dash is surprisingly lurid!

 

The BX dashboard is lit permanently. In fact, turning the lights on won't make it light up so I had to turn the ignition on. Bloomin' French.

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

55390.5 by Monty Horace, on Flickr

 

Never liked the lazy way this lit up - just floodlit from the front.

[Guest]

My heaps mostly have the good old fashioned "can't see fuck all" dash lighting. The more sophisticated ones have two settings: shite, and completely shite.

[Guest]

Did one for you just now, wollydobbles.

 

 

The neighbours think I do the drugs.

Also Peter, that Fiesta speedo shot is superb. That should be a AS calender shot. Just FYI mods.

[Micrashed]

Yeah, now the wife KNOWS I'm tapped in the head after I just nipped out in the pouring rain to photograph the dash of the car...

C8

 

K11

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Popped out to get one of the Sprite, the illumination is really dim.

 

Also Peter, that Fiesta speedo shot is superb. That should be a AS calender shot. Just FYI mods.

Thanks

[trigger]

My wife thinks I'm mad as I've just spent the last 20 minutes in the garden getting dash photos...

 

This is about as exciting as my Cortina gets at night.

 

 

My Golf and Mondeo as well. It's not easy getting dash photos in the dark is it.

 

 

[Guest]

Trig in 'most cars photographed in one sitting for obscure thread at the dead of night' shocker!

[trigger]

and to think I've used a days holiday for this!

[vulgalour]

The glow worn illuminating my time clock has escaped since this picture was taken. Not that it matters, I can't read the time at night anyway due to the stealth hands.

 

[catsinthewelder]

I'm guessing that there are settings other than 'flash off' to get good shots

 

 

 

I didn't think we needed another mk2 BX shot and the neighbours were starting to mutter

[pompei]

The Saab has a button to de-illuminate (is there such a word?) the dash. Apparently it's because you can do that on fighter aircraft. I'll remember that next time I'm coming back from Cleethorpes.

[Guest]

I'm guessing that there are settings other than 'flash off' to get good shots

 

A fuckload of shutter time and a low ISO \ high-ish aperture if you want your shit to look dramatic and shit. It's also lens dependent. The dashboard shot of my 460 was on something like a 20 second exposure and a daft aperture of f/10 or something loopy to get everything sharp, and a low ISO so everything wasn't lit up like General Melchett's war painting of No-Man's-Land.

 

I also use my 18-55 kit lens if I'm shooting at night because nothing else in my bag can talk to the camera and auto focus, which is well handy at night and you can't see well enough to tug the lens round.

 

So, in summary:

 

Tripod

Long exposure

No flash

Low ISO

High Aperture

 

To be even more helpful and contradict all of that I shot my C4's dashboard at 1/20 with an ISO of 1600 and an aperture of f/2 or something. Get the EXIF, it doesn't talk shit like I do. I also shot that with my 25 year old Nikkormat 50mm prime lens, cos I can get better depth of field than the 18-55. I could see well enough to get the shot because the rev counter back lighting is quite intense.

 

The Saab has a button to de-illuminate (is there such a word?) the dash. Apparently it's because you can do that on fighter aircraft. I'll remember that next time I'm coming back from Cleethorpes.

 

My C4 has a 'dark' button that does something similar. Everything goes off other than the central display's speedo, and goes blank. Of course, the safest place to put this is on the stereo on an unlit button near to the gearstick. Although that may just be my car.

[R9UKE]

[STUNO]

It's dark here so this got done.

 

wholerover

[HillmanImp]

Popped out to get one of the Sprite, the illumination is really dim.

 

Also Peter, that Fiesta speedo shot is superb. That should be a AS calender shot. Just FYI mods.

Thanks

 

I like the Smiths Instruments. They really are very pleasant to look at.

[dollywobbler]

Excellent. Thanks for proving it's not just me chaps! I hope for another round and a different set of confused neighbours/other halves tonight. Might try and get one of the 2CV - that's always a challenge!

[Ross_K]

100k in the Activa

 

[stormee]

Not that easy...

[stormee]

That's crying: 'Dear stingy customer! The laurel with the scale surrounding it will always remind you of the rev counter you didn't order!'

[michiel]

Just says 'I pinch you' to me... hang on, that's from a Honda commercial.

Great 'clock' though.

[ashmicro]

Following Watanabe's advice

 

 

I didn't know my camera did half of the stuff it does. I should have RTFM before now!

[Tayne]

Zafira

Wobbly Rig by Tayne, on Flickr

 

Range Rover

Travel and Transport by Tayne, on Flickr

 

Polo

Union Terrace by Tayne, on Flickr

[HMC]

[michael1703]

I love the Jag dash at night, my mk10 looks the same, its like the warming glow of my logburner on a cold winter night

[Conrad D. Conelrad]

Just done the Mini's. These dials are nasty things.

12/2015 edit: picture link died, will replace when I find the original photo

[PhilA]

 

It's very green. And faded.

 

But, it's mostly legible at night, which is an improvement on some cars I've owned.

[stuboy]

mondeo

with night setting on camera..